Page 28 of Runaway in the Mafia (The shadows of Cosa Nostra Chronicles #3)
I waited until he was out of sight before I pulled the handle down and slipped inside.
Instantly, my world fizzled. Everything became darker, warmer.
Cosier. Probably because she’d made the room all dark, but I found the curled-up bundle in the bed easily.
Shutting the door behind me with a soft click, I moved to the bed.
She was curled up in to a foetal position, face turned away from me, head buried under the pillow.
Two Ibuprofens rested on the bedside table.
Something I couldn’t fathom tightened within my chest. I placed the mug beside her pills and sank onto the bed next to her.
“Hurts so badly,” she whimpered, and I didn’t know why, but it caught at my heart strings and tugged.
I didn’t like it, and it pissed me off. I couldn’t help but growl, “That’s what you get when you call people and cry.”
She almost knocked her head on the bed head pulling her head up.
I growled and shoved my hand in between to soften the bump.
Her face crumbled at the sight of me and her eyes squinted from the pain.
Her skin was an unhealthy ashen shade. Too fucking grey to be anywhere near chestnut brown.
It made me angry. Rattle with frustration.
It hadn’t slipped past my mind that she had one of these headaches every fucking time she made those calls.
She may have forgotten that Giuseppe was my fucking errand boy.
I hadn’t. He reported back to me eagerly.
Each week, she went out under the guise of meeting up with her client in town.
She did meet them alright. But she always ended it with one of her calls.
Did she think I was a fucking idiot? Or maybe she didn’t think of me at all.
I didn’t even know what pissed me off the most.
She licked her lips to erase the dried cracks lining them. “What are you—”
“Shut up.”
My hands were jerky as I cracked the Ibuprofen out.
The fact that she actually did that told me how bad her fucking headache was.
“Give me your hand.” She was obedient and held them out.
I handed the mug. She cupped it, her throat working.
Her eyes carried a weird moistness to them.
I took a deep breath and softened my tone. “Drink up.”
Her hands clenched around it, and instead of drinking it, she shakily carried it to the side of her forehead and rolled it along it as if the heat soothed her pain. She was like a puppet, her movements all stiff.
“Open up,” I pulled her lip, and her mouth popped open.
I gritted my teeth as my fingers touched her tongue and placed the pill on it.
“Now, drink up,” I ordered. She was so obedient.
It should have felt like a dream. I didn’t like it.
“Again.” And we repeated. She sipped her tea slowly.
A mixture of ginger and turmeric by the smell of it.
Her huge eyes grew to twice their size when I tugged the band on her ponytail off.
“Keeping your hair in a tie isn’t going to fucking help you now,” I grumbled.
Her eyes slid closed, and her shoulders slumped. “You can go now.”
I didn’t move. She ignored me as she drank, eyes still squeezed shut.
When her cup was empty, I set it on the nightstand.
She slid down the bed, her thighs brushing mine.
She was in far too much pain to feel anything.
I, on the other hand, was unfortunately not.
Her scent was all over me, her skirts ridden up to an inch from her crotch.
My moral lines shook. Taking the sheets, I wrapped her tightly like a fucking mummy. She didn’t object, and satisfaction hummed in my body when she was all covered up.
“If you actually fucking tell me what’s going on, you won’t have to suffer through this shit.”
Her shoulders tensed, and her eyes squeezed harder.
Frustration bubbled underneath my skin. It was all I could do not to shove her against the wall and demand answers. Headache or not.
“All you have to do is give me two words. The first and the last name.” My lips thinned as her gaze scowled. I sighed. “I wish you’d understand. There’s no need to run from a monster when you’re safe with me,” I muttered.
Why couldn’t she just tell me who the fucker was? She wasn’t protecting him. Was she?
My hand clamped on her forehead. She tried to jerk upright, and I shoved her back onto the bed.
“For fuck’s sake. Let me take care of you at least,” I growled.
She whimpered but lay still, stiff as a board beneath my hands.
“You can put your shield up tomorrow,” I told her softly, and she sank deeper into the mattress.
I found myself rubbing the sides of her forehead in a gentle rhythm. Somewhere in between, I dragged her locket from my pocket and dropped it on the nightstand. I’d had my way with it, and something in me didn’t want her to miss it.
It took ten heartbeats for her to relax. But by twenty, she was out. I didn’t know why I stayed far beyond it. Probably because somewhere between leaving my office and putting her to sleep, my tension had faded away.